


brite boy (i could love you)

by newrromantics



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27863154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newrromantics/pseuds/newrromantics
Summary: through the years with dan & blair. au from s4
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	brite boy (i could love you)

**brite boy (i could love you)**

_love you so for all my life_

.

he is teetering on the edge of the sofa, a boy fist curled around the arm chair. he babbles incomprehensible words to his mothers delight, her body flushing with excitement as she shares a look with her husband. _do we tell him now_ , her hand curving around the phantom belly she's been imagining since last month's doctors visit. this was when things were still as they were. dan grew up in a happy household, for the most part. two parents who loved each other, and when they didn't, mostly aimed to shield their fights from inquisitive, impressionable children. he reacts in a mix of confusion and surprise when he's told he's getting a little brother and sister, lower lip wobbling at an idea he doesn't understand. 

when jenny is first born, he's not sure if he loves her. this small creature lapping up all his parents attention. his grandparents sit with him in the hospital waiting room, nervous and telling him stories of when he was born. he has a book in his hands that his grandfather plucked from the hospital gift room, a scene set of a giraffe at tea. dan sits still. he wonders what is about to happen. his dad returns with an elated grin, _it's a girl. she's perfect. you have a little sister, daniel._ later, they pass her fragile infant body over to him. she slots into his arms awkwardly, he pats her head like he would a pet. her hair is a light brown, slicked down upon her forehead. she cries and cries and cries. dan squirms in his seat, her body topping over his arms. his mom snatches her away from him, then. _you have to be careful_ , she hisses, on the edge of hysteria. 

she becomes his first ever real friend. he switches back and forth between amusement and wonder and delight to jealousy and loathing and annoyance. she grows taller, more demanding of his attention. they fight over coloured blocks and she hits him the night she turns four, leaving a harsh red mark against his arm. at night, they squish into one bed together for story-time. rufus alternates with dan over who reads what, and before long, dan is making up stories for all of them at bedtime. jenny squeals in delight, her face one of wonder when she stares up at her big brother.

he is on the playground, knee deep into dirt when she sits down next to him. her knees are bruised from falling on the concrete, and her hair is all tangled from where she fought her mom with a brush. they play with the trucks without learning each others names, their parents sitting at brooklyn bridge park together. before long, they have playdates every wednesday and end up going to the same pre-school; by choice or design, they'll never be sure. their parents must have conspired with each other, or the biggest city is really just a small city. a rotation of the same people frequenting every corner. _you are my most special friend_ _,_ vanessa tells him on his birthday, hugging him with the kind of force and unbridled love a child could muster. it won't last forever.

he meets a boy when he is eleven who delivers him butterfly kisses behind the school shed, and tells him stories about dragons during recess. he is the first person to look at dan and see him as he wants to be seen. together, they delve into lands of fantasy in the school library. legs tucked up underneath one another, rolling eyes at the latest terry brooks. there's so many worlds dan hasn't visited that fynn teaches him about. they take turns writing each other stories they exchange on monday morning's, red-ball point pens circling errors as a form of love. but then fynn has to move away, back to germany where his father is dying. his parents are divorced, but his mother feels an urgency to return to his fathers death bed. dan doesn't understand the anger fynn has then, the way he hates his parents and all their choices. his dad is his enemy, the man who tore his family apart once and is doing it again. they both promise to write - letters and stories, send them via post. dan says goodbye to fynn on a friday afternoon, slinging his backpack on his shoulder, they shuffle their foot awkwardly, promise again they'll write, but that's the last time dan hears anything from him. he loses his address in the washing machine cycle, a piece of paper tucked into his pants pocket.

his parents get worse at hiding their fights. jenny starts to throw more tantrums. their loft becomes unbearable, stuffy and chaotic. just that morning jenny had thrown a chair across the room because alison had told her no about something. dan hates having a sister sometimes. he meets vanessa at the cafe her sister works at, the two of them sitting in silence as they read their respective books. ruby had given her a camera last week, and she takes a few snaps of dan, a video of him pulling a face. it's easy, like this, and sometimes when he stares too long at vanessa he can see all the beauty she holds. but he is thirteen, and he pushes it down, ignores the way her eyelashes fall against her skin and the sheen of plump lips. he goes home and watches porn for the first time that night, awkwardly gripping his limp dick in his hand. suddenly shy about what to do.

they sit him down to tell him the news. pamphlets and perspectives. st. judes. he was an aposotle, a right hand man. the brother of jesus. they aren't religious, he doesn't know much more than that. his parents look delighted, urging him to share the excitement. dan has a sick feeling in his stomach, a nervous enthusiasm he doesn't want to share. he remains apathetic about the upcoming change, complaining constantly about trust fund brats to save face. inside, he is troubled by how much he wants it. he's always felt out of place, an outsider among the realm of under achieving students at his public school. he locks himself in his room and writes pages and pages and pages of poetry he shoves into a cupboard. this is his chance, he thinks, grabbing another cup of coffee his mother has brewed for him. 

at fourteen he dons a new blazer. he looks small in his too big uniform, his parents wrangling for the perfect photo-op outside the school gates. dan's cheeks flush red as the other boys flurry past him in a daze, their parents not looking back as they drop them off at the gate. he knows the wealth gap that exists between them. rufus had dredged up his old bank accounts, sold certain recording rights to send him here. his parents both start to cry as he whines to be let go. vanessa films the whole interaction from the sideline, her newly buzzed head reflecting the sour grim lines on his face. alison leaves a big, wet kiss on his cheek before pushing him inside. _go, i can't bear it!_ she's always had a flair for the dramatics, it's where jenny inherits it all from. he leaves without looking back, trying his best to walk confidently through the halls. he feels restless. he wonders if everyone else is as nervous as him.

dan makes no friends his first week. everyone already seems to know each other. the boys are cruel in their dismissal. he keeps to the back, studiously taking notes and furiously glaring at the wealth oozing off the backs of his peers. he fumbles in the courtyard for his cigarettes, pushing past the crowds assembling for lunch. he smokes outside the gates so he can't get told off and angrily scribbles mean, angry words into his notebook. charcoal stains his fingers, and he regrets ever stepping foot somewhere he doesn't belong. he names the poem _the outsider._ he is always on the outside, it doesn't matter where he goes. he sits on the sidelines, observing and watching. he makes mental maps of who is friends with and who hates who. he shares civil conversations with anthony in computer science and is ignored by markus in calculus. the sister school watches their lacrosse games. he mostly sits and watches too, but sometimes he'll fumble around with that stick. 

they put him in advanced lit his first year, second semester. he sits down next to a brunette from constance, who he's seen hanging off of nate archibald's arm every chance the two schools mingle. she's pretty, he first thinks, when he sits down next to her. they're assigned seats, and she doesn't even glance at him that first lesson. they don't really talk to each other, but he observes her careful, looping handwriting and she bites out scathing remarks about whatever author they're studying. they get into a fight about ernest hemmingway. dan is pro, he thinks he's a pioneer of the genre, a force of the landscape of literature. she calls him a misogynistic hack with no real talent. she changes his mind. he doesn't learn her name. but on the last day of class, she smiles at him. shakes his hand. _it's been fun,_ she says before disappearing through the halls. presumably to chase after the rotting brain of archibald.

vanessa sneaks him into a club her sister is performing at. they sit in the smoking area, sharing a joint with ruby's older friends. they're all so very cool, vanessa tells him. she has her eye on the red-headed isabella, an upper east side artist who disowned her family and put her artwork in a brooklyn gallery. it's all violent imagery, all very blood and guts. she tells him she has a painting with her own blood on it, from when her ex-boyfriend broke her wrist and she bled out onto the canvas she had been working on. they buy the two of them beers and they get drunk as ruby sings on stage, swinging her hips back and forth. he gets tipsy fast, a kind of feeling he's never felt before. he thinks he must be drunk when later, he dances with vanessa, his hands on her hips and her body pressed up against his. she shimmies her hips and laughs, throwing back her head. her hair has started growing back, but not by much. he grinds on her a little, imitating isabella's boyfriend. vanessa wraps her fingers around his neck and pulls him in. it's so messy and gross when they kiss, teeth clashing together. it's a first, for both of them, and she spits as soon as she pulls away. he laughs and rubs the back of his hand against the back of his mouth. _never again,_ they say in unison.

when he's fifteen he gets invited to his first st judes party. he walks into the foyer of a penthouse and feels his breath leave his body. it's gorgeous and sprawling, and he feels inadequate - again, always. he sees her from the staircase, next to the brunette girl from class. her hair is a kind of shiny blonde he's seen disappearing through corridors at school before. she's beautiful, he thinks, staring up at her in awe. a glass of champagne is dumped all over her. her white dress gets soaked and she just giggles. giggles, and giggles, and giggles. traipses down the staircase like she's walked this tight-rope a thousand times before. there is an effortless glamour to her, he thinks, getting lost in the thoughts of a writer. an infectious charm he's desperate to chase. scott sidles up to him and whistles in her direction. _serena's a fucking bombshell, right?_ later, when he leaves he tests her name out on his lips, tastes it on his tongue. it's not long before he becomes kind of obsessed.

each poem he writes after has pieces of her in it. he sees her everywhere, afterwards. she speaks to him once, asking for a cigarette outside the school gates. she leans effortlessly against the brick, long thigh high socks and a mini skirt the nuns would faint at seeing every day. his eyes trail over her legs in a way that makes him feel creepy and she laughs and laughs as she tells him about how mr. sullivan had kicked her out of english. _i think it's because i'm drunk,_ she says. a car pulls up outside the gates before he can reply, a boy a few years older than him sticking his head out the window, all golden gold hair, and she squeals in delight, dropping the cigarette on the concrete and squashing it with the heel of her mary-jane. she throws a goodbye to dan over her shoulder before climbing into the front seat. his stomach tightens a little when he watches her kiss him, watches the way his hands roam around her body. he turns around, putting his own smoke out, and goes back inside. he's late for french.

he stops seeing serena. through the grapevine gossip he hears she skipped town. he gets drunk with vanessa and her friends in the park, and talia kisses him full on the mouth. pushing his body down into the dirt and she climbs on top of him. he winds his fingers through her hair, tugging hard, and she bites his lower lip. he thinks of serena, and then he thinks of vanessa. two nights later, she tells him she's leaving for vermont. he cries in his childhood bedroom and she holds him tight. _you can't go, i love you._ he pleads, but she leaves anyway. everyone always leaves, he finds out that year. a few months later his mom moves to hudson for her art, but he knows she's not coming back. he can see it on his fathers face. he spends week in a caffeine induced haze, writing and writing until his palms ache. jenny disappears at all hours of the day, hunting down sewing machines and fabrics to create fantastic wardrobes to deal with the crushing loss she's experiencing. dan loses himself to daydreams, and smoking, and staying up all night long. the city sparkles with stars crowded by fumes.

he's in the same class as her again, the brunette from advanced lit. they sit rows apart. he knows she's serena's best friend, now. she's haughty and rude, and when jenny starts at constance she comes home crying with stories about the evil blair waldorf. he learns to loathe her through the stories he's told and watching the way she dismisses everyone. they talk only once, in a group project, and she rejects every idea he has. he thinks every story must have a villain, and she's his.

rufus ships him and jenny on a train to hudson, joyous without the joy. dan pretends to not see, if he doesn't see then jenny doesn't she, and if she doesn't see his dad won't be as crushed to the core as he is. it's a fine tight-rope he walks. he orders an espresso before they board, slinging his bag and jenny's on his shoulder. she babbles through the whole trip, pulling his ear phones out of his ears to catch him up on the latest school gossip she's over heard in class, or seen online. she hasn't made any friends yet, coasting through the prestigious elite as a ghost. but unlike him, she pushes and pushes and pushes rather than falling to the sidelines. she talks to all the older girls, and she runs errands for blair waldorf sometimes, and no freshman has ever done that before. dan tries to be sensitive to the situation, doling out brotherly advice jenny dismisses with a stare before delving into a new topic.

in hudson, she pushes their mom for an answer of when she's coming home. dan notes down the bare walls, the lack of paintings taking up space. he sees a man's jacket tossed over the back of a chair. he finds unused paints and brushes. he smells a different perfume. alison takes jenny shopping, and he takes inventory of his mom's new space. her new life. she's not coming home. he knows that, dad knows that. he steals a pack of her cigarettes, chain-smokes out her window. his fingers smudged with ink as he writes. he watches a tabby cat stretch out in the lawn, her neighbour feed him cut up chicken. dan waves, the neighbour shuffles over to the window in reply. hands in his pockets, rocking back on his feet, asks who dan is. _alison's son._ the neighbour nods awkwardly, introduces his cat mango, and dan blows smoke straight into his face. he'll say it's by accident, but he thinks the jacket on the back of his chair is his. so who's to say, really.

the city bursts with excitement when they come back. it's christmas, and then it's the new year, and then another trip to hudson has come and gone, and then serena's back. serena's back, and dan thinks this is his chance. he's so sick of hiding in the shadows. he pours himself a coffee and follows jenny's advice (a first; the advice, not the caffeine spreading through his bones). she runs straight into him, a daze of blonde hair and terror. she's almost exactly as he remembers her. there's always a little bit of chaos emanating through her skin. she crashes into him, her phone falling, and she keeps on walking forward. he has her phone.

.

she is born in november, in the middle of a fight. it's the first time eleanor finds out about one of harold's affairs. mid-labour, he comes rushing in, collar turned the wrong way and another man's perfume staining his neck. after this fight, they never talk about it. they are in love sometimes, and often times they aren't, but they've been best friends since college and can't separate now that there's a baby in the picture. he calls her blair bear and eleanor takes to drinking, sometimes, only sometimes. she buries herself in work, and harold lifts blair up into the air like she is a prized possession. there is no lack of love for her, but the house remains empty all the same. later, she'll compare it a mausoleum full of pretty things with no function.

she is a fussy child. she is the only one. harold wants another, gets on his hands and knees and pleads for one more baby. but eleanor destroyed her body in the process of having her, her mind and her sanity. the postpartum depression still lingers well into blair's teen years. harold doesn't understand, he will never understand what it's like to endure that kind of trauma. eleanor says no, and no, and no until she scathingly bites back _well how do we propose we have one?_ the elephant in the room addressed. he stops asking, after that. he spends more time at the office, on business trips. eleanor doesn't mind, not really. she passes blair off to a new maid each week, a rotation door of nannies she fires and fires and fires. harold comes home, brings her flowers, and they play scrabble on the living room floor. she scrambles in, a tiny child, rearranging letters on the board. it is the most love the house has ever seen when the three of them are together.

she grows up watching old films one of her nannies slots in the vhs for her. marilyn monroe in all her glory, aboard a train. grace kelly riding the monaco coastline. marlene dietrich, in cabaret. but her favourite is audrey: in rome, in paris, in new york city. she longs for the skylines she sees reflected on the screen that exist outside her bedroom. she plays dolls by the fire place, she swings alone. she grows up a lonely child. self efficient, eleanor will proudly proclaim, boasting to all her friends. a child that isn't needy, isn't dependant. 

eleanor's friend lily has a girl around the same age. all blonde golden charm. she pushes her inside the waldorf penthouse, her little brother trailing behind. _eleanor, i'm late for my honeymoon._ without another word, she disappears. its the first time blair meets her: standing in her foyer, sucking on her thumb, stroking her little brothers hair. blair is uneasy with jealousy when eleanor swoops in, cradling both children in her arms and peppering them with the kisses she never gives to blair. she introduces the girls over tea and tells them she's sure they'll be the very best of friends. blair sometimes thinks they're stuck together because eleanor wished it so. would serena be a girl she'd ever hang onto like a lifeline if she hadn't been put in the way?

that's the thing: blair's social circle is full, very early on. the archibald's and the van der woodsen's and the coates' and the farkas' are all staples of the waldorf penthouse. together, they scrape their knuckles on the playground and break plates in the kitchen. all except for blair, who stands on the side, worried they'll get in trouble. she bites her nails down until there's nothing left and eleanor scolds her for being careless, such a careless girl, but she's not running around with ripped dresses and ripped knees. she breaks a porcelain mug with serena, watching the picture splinter. eleanor graps onto her arm tightly, whisking her up stairs. she learns early on she can't win.

blair can't remember when she fell in love with nate. she supposes she always has been. it's like there's always been this ever-present flutter in her heart, this curling tension when she looks at him. he was the one who'd sit down on the steps with her, while everyone else was too busy playing tag. he'd hold her hand when she was scared to cross the road. he painted with her, drawing love hearts around her page. he would sit and play scrabble with her when all the other kids were busy, taught her how to whistle when she didnt know how. and his family came for dinner at least once a week. serena would join them, too. the three of them escaping through the gardens during the summer on adventures, huddled together in harsh winters at the grown up parties. his name was expected to roll from her tongue when the girls would gather and ask for each others crushes. their parents even joked about it. she and nate just always were.

her first big fight with serena was about him. only seven or so with fistfuls of each-others hair and tears welling in their eyes. nate watched hopelessly from the sidelines, stuck in the cross-fire between the moon and the sun. serena was sick of being the daughter in families, because she loved nate, too. but blair was always the mother, the wife to nate's adoring father, husband. it started with serena shouting _you get everything, you always do._ sitting in her mom's new pity dress for another divorce. it's funny how years later the phrase would turn to blair's lips; back then, it belonged to serena alone. and blair fought against it until they were brawling and screaming they'd never speak again. eleanor tells her that it's silly to fight with your best friend over a boy, blair agreed. _especially when that boy is already yours, blair._

he kisses her for the first time at the ice-rink. shaking hands, ten years old. her father is watching and her cheeks are whipped red from a blush from the cold. his mouth is icy and gross, and she recoils a little. serena has her first kiss that same week, anthony, from soccer. all she does is talk about how thrilling it was, and leaves blair wondering what's wrong with her that nate's kiss left her feeling weird.

lily is getting married again. a beautiful bride, again. she wears white lace and serena sneaks champagne from off the table. blair sits patiently by the bay window, twisting her thumb until the nail bed breaks. she bleeds onto the pink satin her mother had pushed her into wearing. she is so nervous from being caught she can feel the rise of bile in her throat. serena shoves the bottle under her nose, already uncorked. lily lets serena drink at dinner, sometimes, but blair's never had any before. not even wine, although her father had tried. she gently presses her lips around the rim of the glass and takes a big gulp, and another, and another. her and serena share the bottle, feeling giddy and restless and as light as air. blair thinks she sees everything through the colour of love, rolling onto her back and tugging serena down with her. _i love you, i love you, i love you_ they say, so earnestly at thirteen before the fall out.

it's only a few months later that serena meets georgina and georgina takes her out all the time, to boys penthouse parties and hotel rooms with strange older men. blair and nate read her mothers magazines and watch audrey on screen. serena hates her new step father and takes a liking to vodka. blair takes a liking to criticise her changing body. she takes a liking to making out with nate, under the blankets of her bed. she tells him she loves him more than anyone, he says he's worried about serena. they grow up all so fast. serena drags her along one night, to carter baizen's party, and she feeds blair shots until she's throwing up and waking up next to a strange older st judes boys staring at her. she runs outside, lost and sobbing, hailing down a taxi. she doesn't tell anybody but nate, who decides not to speak to serena for three weeks.

when nate is fourteen he tries to have sex with her. he licks her ear, unexperienced with his only knowledge stemming from porn. he buries his hand inside the cotton underwear her parents replenish her drawers with. he tells her he loves her, and people in love do this all the time, and blair squirms underneath his touch. he says serena does it all the time, and she shoves his hand away. _i'm not a slut like her._ he tries to say it's different, because they're in love, but blair's body burns with serena's latest betrayal. she's chosen georgina again, she's chosen carter baizen again, she's chosen cocaine again. she's not the same girl she recognises. a hopeless lost cause all the boys make fun of. the kind of girl who glitters and gets everything still.

serena parties. blair stitches nate hearts into his sweaters. she kisses serena at a party, all hot wet lips messily missing their mouths. serena's fingers on her thigh, on her hip, pushing her down on blair's empty bed. nate is somewhere down below, nate doesn't have to know. she loves serena, she loves her, she loves her; she tells her she's worried about her, serena slips a strap of her dress off her shoulder. _it's fun fucking girls, we should get nate up here._ blair rolls out from underneath her, _ugh gross s._ before she storms down the stairs, serena trailing behind her with an apology. the guilt is gnawing at her stomach, and she feels a little sick when she catches nate's eye from down below, but not from her own error in judgement - he's not looking at her, his eyes are fixed on serena. wild, gorgeous serena. the boy from lit is staring at her too, his eyes fixed upon serena. goddess serena, aphrodite in new york.

blair leaves for scotland, half-convinced something will happen when she's away. she roams the scottish country side with cousins she's never met before. brash and uncouth. her uncle gives her a tour of his farm and she squeals in disgust when a pig is slaughtered in his backyard. he lays the dish out for them to eat for dinner, and she excuses herself as soon as the first bite has touched her lips. her parents share a worried stare, but say nothing of it to her. impressionable teenage girls do not need to be talked to, is what their doctor had told them.

when she returns, serena is gone and nate is distant and her parents are soon getting a divorce. it feels easier to slip into a role of cruelty than just the need for control she usually occupies. freshman fear her and nate doesn't touch her and she lies awake at night wondering where things went wrong. the girls fall in line behind her and within a week she makes headbands popular again. she hangs onto the fear she puts out like it's the only thing she has left. 

a bitter feeling rises in her throat when she finds out serena is back. she rushes to the bathroom, reapplies her lipstick and tries to anticipate a game-plan. but serena is everything she has always been and ruins everything by appearing and disappearing in one second. blair scrubs her skin in the shower that night. she will ice her out of her life the way she was iced out of hers. when she sees her at the kiss on the lips party her vision blurs, her body lit with indescribable anger. the newfound knowledge of the crime she committed. her eyes are fixed to her, until they're not; they slide over to the spot the boy in her class, the buzzcut. a new anger is relit. serena can take even the most intelligent and twist them into her sick, downcast toys. 

.

he thinks: she's not that bad, not really, not anymore as he watches serena prance around in front of cameras and blair's shoulders straighten with a seething anger simmering under the surface of her facade. he had thought she was the devil before, had thought she was cruel at the brunch, but had overlooked all the wrong-doings serena had inflicted, maybe, had ignored the similarities he shared with her. he had always wanted to be loved, a deep fierce longing to belonging. his eyes catch her profile, the staunch posture, the heavy eyes. he thinks she might just want the same thing. her mothers approval, her mothers love, his mothers absence mirroring the dismissal she garners from hers.

she has loved serena all her life. has tried to mend the broken link serena severed. has tried and tried and tried to be the girl her mom has always wanted, the perfect daughter, the model image. but all blair gets is broken bones and boyfriends who want someone else instead; she has lived in serena's shadow, she has lived out of it. she wonders if the two can ever coexist simultaneously without one of them being cast aside, she wonders if it'll ever be serena on the sidelines. blair wants to hate her and she wants to love her, but she's so tired of doing both. of being everyone, and serena doesn't get it when she tells her, and she won't ever get it, because all she looks is hurt and defensive, and blair feels her throat tightening, threatening to spill shards of glass in the air between them. so she turns on her heels and runs away, taking a page out of serena's beloved book.

he finds her in the hallway. he finds her in the hallway and feels a cold slap against his own heart. she's still cold, walls up. he tells her about his mom, she remains mute on hers, but there's no need to say anything when he understands. he understands, and that's where it begins. two speeding hearts racing through a walled off platform, both fighting for something, some kind of belonging always evading their touch. she looks at him and doesn't want to feel, anything. she always feels too much, too much of everything, too much all the time. she listens to him talk like a little kid at a campfire story, hanging onto every word, hoping to find some part that will tell her what to do. he offers her invisible branches that she knows not to cling onto, an olive branch extended when she's been nothing but dismissive of him. he's not that bad. serena, nate, they never talk about their parents. they all bury down their pain until it comes up in a bottle of tequila at brunch, a body slumped over a bathtub, blonde hair stringy with vomit. it takes a family dinner, his parents fighting with his grandparents, only one shared look, no words, to ever understand the gravity of nate's situation. but dan lays his out plainly, not for him, not to take a weight off of his shoulder, but it's because what she needs in this moment.

so she spits back all the pride she has and listens to him talk, pushes down her gratitude and doesn't let the feelings in. he is serena's and she is nate's and any fleeting feeling of warmth she's having is just a swirling fury of wanting payback.

/

he trails after serena, a little lost, a little sick in love, a little disillusioned. she comes and she goes and she wrecks havoc, and she shows him how to love and how to be loved and how to wait up all night long with an aching heart. he watches blair move back and forth, from serena, to nate, to chuck, to jenny. he's searching for a place just as much as she is. he feels on the verge of being sick each night jenny trails home, a little older, a little less wiser. he could murder, each night she's put in danger, blair dismissively placing her in the middle of a waging war as a tool. he stays up at night, he doesn't think of her often, but he thinks of her more than he should.

she has an essay competition, a speech, a debate. he only goes because he's in the same class, an unanswered text to serena asking when she's getting here. the room sparse from anyone he knows. he sits down the back, checking his phone, the time, the unanswered text. he feels his stomach acid rot a little, wondering where serena is now; what bathroom stall, what toilet she must be hunched over. he's heard all the stories, he's seen the champagne at school. blair shakes a little when she gets on stage, and it's rare he sees her this unconfident, this nervous. he only goes because he's in the same class, because she's serena's best friend. he stays because he gains insight into her mind, just a little more. she digs into mrs dalloway, half the words flying over his head. he shouldn't think she's beautiful, but he does.

there's nothing there when he sits next to her, hunched over a phone call. she presses her fingers into his shoulders, tells him he's a natural. they both love serena and she's somewhere, drowning, and they're doing this for her. blair looks at him as the lies roll off his tongue, and she doesn't want to feel a pull, a tug, when he's good at what she does. her best friend is the name written in cursive stamped on his heart, and he wears too much flannel, and lives in the wrong borough. but afterwards, he hangs his head in his hands and says he feels like some kind of ripley. blair scrunches her nose, says she kind of hates highsmith.

.

he sees her again and again, in an ever constant cycle and flurry of schemes and schoolyard stares, and hanging off serena like a protective leech. she stands in front of him, begrudgingly begging for help, aided by serena's need for the two of them to be friends. he remembers, back before, when he was still foolishly in love, all the nights spent with serena in his ear, telling him how much he and blair have in common. he listens to her talk about chuck bass and thinks all they have in common is bad taste in the ones they choose to love.

he's assigned the lead in the school play opposite her. she orders him to her house, assigns him movements like he's a doll. pinching and grabbing, pulling and spinning him around her room. he reads the titles of the books on her shelf, patiently listens to the classical music she puts on her record player to get them _in character_ , eats fruit and yogurt that dorota prepares for them each afternoon. when they finish practice early they fight over films and the strokes album she has hidden away. she tells him to get out, humphrey. her hands firm on his chest as she pushes him out the door, and he never imagines kissing her as she hovers over him in the live performance, her leg hooked around his in the carriage driving through an imaginary set.

he hates her most of all for rachel. he gets over it anyway.

/

she has never been unpopular a single day in her life. she has been hated and feared and loathed, but she has never been pushed so far in the background she feels like an extra in a forgettable film. even at her loneliest, she had people clinging to be seen by her - just not always the right people. in the middle of the nyu campus all she has is blank stares and people purposely blowing her off as if she carries some infectious disease. people gravitate towards the likes of humphrey and georgina, both curse ridden diseased losers. she gets too drunk when she tells dan her fears, on their way to a party she can't wait to derail. her touches her headband more gently than any boy has ever touched her before, tossing it aside as if he's throwing away her crown. but he tells her she's more than who she pretends to be, more than anyone here will she her for. she feels seen in a way she thinks she's never before, so she fucks it up twice as bad that night to make sure humphrey will never look her way again.

he watches from the sidelines as she falls in and out of chuck's grasp, loose and lingering, slipping forward and back. he is too consumed to notice the complete destruction that unravels between them, too much of a bystander to ever be involved, but he knows when he sees her at the reception, dejected and alone, that something terrible has gone down. she's better than the worst, and too much of a villain to ever be good in his story, but she's kind when she chooses to be, smarter than anyone else in the room. he wants to tell her more than he does, but instead he takes her hand and dances with her to try and ease the pain of her misery. they've both been burned like this before, she passes him a shot, and they throw them back together. she won't ever open up to him, but she tells him thank you when she leaves that night. her touch lingering like a burn on his skin.

she spends the day with dan, in an effort to avoid the futile inevitable return to chuck. she banishes his sister that same night and knows she won't see him again.

.

things begin that winter. they begin that thanksgiving, the brush of his hand when he dries the bowls and blair's laugh when she shows him how to wash dishes properly. serena has never washed a dish in her life, blair complains. none of them have, but she is particular, he learns. he learns a lot of things about her that break. he learns how the left side of her lips lift a little higher when she laughs, the way her eyes crinkle when she scrunches her nose, that she likes a dirty martini but wouldn't tell anyone, that she has a stack of nicholas spark novels hidden in a secret spot in her bedroom, the way she is always at minimum ten minutes early.

he runs into her at the film forum, a showing of nenette. he sits the row back from her, doesn't even realise it's her until it's halfway through and she's crying into a paisley pocket square. it belongs to chuck, she gets a lump of mascara all over it. she spots him afterwards, once she has packed up her bag and has descended down the row of seats. he tries to hide, just a little, if only to spare a snarky remark, but to his surprise, she just says _hi, how are you_ as she curls a finger around her ear to tuck her hair back. he can see how soft and dewy her skin is when the lights in the cinema lift a little, the faint track of tear marks that have run through her foundation. he lingers on a word for a second too long, she shifts from one leg to the other. _not good_ , he laughs, _that was fucking sad._ he presses the back of his hand to his face, roughly wiping away the tears that had fallen during his own viewing. she laughs, nods her head, _yeah, it was._

he sees her again, this time for a viewing of an american in paris. he sees her in the foyer, she sees him. they don't speak, but soundlessly make their way to the same row. four seats apart, her hiss across the distance _we're not friends_ echoing in his ear long after the movie begins. he watches her for a quarter of the movie, studying her profile the way he studies families on the subway; looking for a story, looking for a truth. he thinks he's never been this close to her before, a girl who was affectively a friend is affectively a stranger. he thinks she has her walls down when she's consumed by a narrative. she prods him for his thoughts, afterwards, in the short gap of time they have before they reach the door of the theatre and go their separate ways.

it becomes a ritual of sorts, their seat arrangement shortening in time. four seats apart turns to three turns to two turns to one until they're sitting next to each other, elbows brushing, whispered remarks. he finds her funnier when her jabs aren't directed to him. she's quick with her wit, sharp with her tongue. she's quite a killer, but more than that, he realises she's more insightful than he's ever given her credit for. she reads the motives and plots with more care than he gives, more empathy for characters he'd never spare any for. he finds himself realising a whole new light to the world when she explains her judgements. hushed cinema sharing turns into dark bars on the lower west side, a gin and tonic or two. he finds that she orders harder drinks, but she likes the frivolous cocktails most of all; he orders every eccentric cocktail off each menu, and she drinks half the glass of each one for him.

they're caught in the rain, their bones soaked, shaking and quaking. they're twenty-five minutes late to the showing of amelie, and dan holds a flimsy umbrella above their heads that keeps trying to run off in the wrong direction. blair is pissed, her face scrunched up, fingers pulling on her coat. she wants to go home, he thinks. she wants to spend as much time with him as she can claim in a way that doesn't make her think too hard, she looks up at him through her wet eyelashes, the mascara coating a hazard painting under her eyes, and thinks if they were different people that this would be a scene in a romantic comedy that would make her heart swoon. some nights she spends awake, trying to push the thought of him from out of her skin. it's as if he's buried himself into every inch of her, she assures herself it's just a thanksgiving break feeling. she's clinging to humphrey due to loneliness. he asks if she wants him to call her a cab. he watches as she stalks off into the night.

she sends him book after book in the mail. some from her personal collection, but most she buys from the bookstore she tells nobody about and writes secret coded messages in the front cover for him to decode. insults laden with secret compliments she hopes he's not smart enough to figure out. it feels dangerous each time she walks inside the store, her coat hood up, sunglasses covering her face. her fingers running over labels she's read a hundred times, plucking them from the shelves, always paying in cash in case someone tracks the books on his shelf to her credit card. she underlines passages and writes in a slightly off cursive that looks distinct enough to belong to someone else, but familiar enough that the loopy B she signs the page with looks as if it belongs to her. he sends them back, sometimes, his own notes in red. she reads the letters virginia sent to vita and tells herself she misses chuck when she catches herself wondering what humphrey thinks.

he takes her dancing in brooklyn just before everyone is due to be back; he drags her into a bar when she's already drunk enough not too care, her mouth contorting to spill line after line of disgust for the likes of his borough. he buys jugs of beer and she curls her lips in whiplash when she tastes the bitter, sour liquid. she throws her arms around his neck at one point. he looks for cameras, just in case. he thinks they could kiss. she leans in with every intent, her body throbbing in time to the beat of his voice, his aftershave intoxicating as she leans in close, but she pulls back just before she can ruin it all. a flimsy excuse falling from her tongue, and she doesn't return his call for three days.

serena returns with stories up her arm to tell, asks if blair did anything eventful over breakfast. she says no, she thinks maybe.

.

they begin the same internship at W. she gives him bad coffee and stumbles over her tasks, too busy watching him. she tells serena he's driving her crazy, _crazy, crazy, crazy!_ and then later, when she's sure nobody is awake, she slips underneath her covers and runs a finger over her hipbone thinking of his hands. the hands she had touched that day, passing files and printed photoshoots and gift bags. the hands she watches him write with, a quick, messy scrawl on notepads. she half wonders if their for epperly or for a novel, or a poem. she never asks, but tries to peek inside his brain when he's not looking. she thinks of his hands when she touches herself, trailing further down until she's in her underwear and she can smell him on her skin, and she can see his head of curls hovering over her head. she starts to cum only thinking of him, and she starts to hate herself for it.

he quits for her, and she starts calling him for movies over the phone. _as we can't see them in person anymore,_ she tells him dryly. she lets him know the time stamp and settles back into a comfortable silence as the film rolls on, broken up only by the sound of a curt comment from one of them. even with her hectic schedule at W she always makes time for it, she spends the day in a flushed furry, looking forward to only the moment she can relax and rewind with the sound of his voice in her ear. she reads the story he submits and tells him she won't. she looks at him in every shared room, studying the lines and contours of his face as if he might disappear one day, and she feels sick to the stomach when he has to cancel a movie one night. she starts sneaking to brooklyn, finding his spare key and waiting in his loft for him. he becomes one of the only people she'll eat pizza with, greasy and full of ripe tomato sauce, from a corner store family italian pizza parlour dan raves about. she falls asleep on him, her heels kicked off. he touches her shoulder gently, but she never wakes.

they kiss. they kiss in her foyer, her fingers tightening greedily around his shirt. her whole body lit with shivers, a moment that's been dawning on her for quite a while. she's terrified of the outcome - she can accept a lack of sparks, chalk her insane daydreams up to an intellectual connection, but she doesn't know what she'll do if she'll want more from this. she starts to psyche herself out of it as she leans in, her heart racing, her lips closing in over his. they're softer than she ever imagined them, and she should pull away now, but his fingers press against the nape of her neck, pulling her in closer. their chests are pressed together, her legs wobble as she parts her mouth open for him. his tongue is languid inside of her mouth, meeting each moan. she gets so wet she thinks she's going to spill all over the floor in a puddle. he moves her backwards, his fingers tangling in her hair. she pulls on his shirt more, and more, and more. his kiss is rough and sweet, and it finishes too soon. he pulls back, pulls back before she could pull down. she looks at him wide-eyed, swipes the back of her hand against her mouth and says _thank you. guess that's settled._ she turns her back to him, her legs still shaky as she stalks up the stairs. he can let himself out.

.

he spends every night dreaming of her. she is whisked off by a prince. she calls him when she's tipsy, bordering drunk. definitely drunk when her words are slurring together, and there's a ring pressing against her phone when she calls him. she's outside, the air cold and brisk. she's thinking of their first kiss, she's thinking of their second kiss in a pink dress that was only supposed to exist as a cover-up strategy. he picks up on the fourth ring, his voice rough with sleep. words escape her, and she leans a little too close to the open road. _i'm getting married._ he's the first person she tells. he has nothing to say but a hollow congratulations, and her body aches for him, just a little. she asks if she can come over. he says yes. he's never told her no.

the door is unlocked when she arrives, she slips inside and he's inside his kitchen, making coffee. she curls up on his couch, asks him if he thinks she's making a mistake. he calms her down with a cup of tea she throws against the floor for tasting off. she opens up to him about chuck, for the first time. in all the gory details. he sits with her until she's cried it all out, makes his bed for her with her hovering over his shoulder giving him critiques. when he leaves, she says _thank you_ so softly, like she's a child again, and he smiles a little lopsided as he closes the door. he goes through half a pack that night, smoking out his fire escape in secret.

in the morning she calls louis and calls it off before the news can circulate. he puts charade on for her in the morning, makes her bagels. one half cream cheese, one half avocado. she curls up to him on the couch in a pair of his old sweatpants and a st judes shirt his dad had bought for him upon graduation. she makes fun of him for it, his hands linger over her skin. he washes their dishes, blair hovering over him. she moves through his loft like both a permanent fixture and a ghost that could evaporate at any moment. he wants to kiss her, but he doesn't. he puts on movie after movie for her until she gets bored and demands a book, and she reads _the trial_ while he writes another short story about a ghost living in the skin of a young boy.

she doesn't leave for four days. brooklyn starts to feel embedded in her bones. she barely leaves the loft, but dan manages to drag her to the bodega in a disguise. she laughs at his jokes, his attempts to cheer her up but she doesn't have the heart to tell him she's not sad. she barely knew the man, but she knows dan enough to not crush him in his moment of panicked care. they eat cheap takeout by the tv, debate movies that are a good decade old, read literature taught in the english classes they both stopped attending. on her third night there, she tells dan to stay in bed with her. she learns her snores in his sleep and his arms are sturdy, built to hold. she sleeps soundlessly that night, enough to return home the next day. she keeps waiting for him to kiss her but he never does.

.

she leaves for paris that summer, kissing humphrey goodbye on the check in the van der woodsen penthouse under prying eyes. she tells him to come, but he has work in the city this summer. an internship, stories to write. _girls to fall in love with,_ she teases, but he gives her only a slim lopsided grin. she hates that they both know whats in between them, a refusal to acknowledge the obvious. on the plane she convinces herself that they're only friends, very good friends. the kind of friends that rely on each other, who know each other inside out. he calls her as soon as she lands to make sure she is safe, and she asks him about what he's writing.

he meets a girl that summer, who is blonde and loud and as lonely as he is. her boyfriend is on the coast, seeing another girl behind her back. she breaks up with him over text and drinks cheap red wine in his loft, on the fire escape as the sun sets. dan talks about blair in the abstract as a friend of a friend and the new girl gets under his skin in the wrong way. she leaves in june to mend her relationship and her perfume lingers on his pillowcase for the week after before he washes it clean of any trace of her. blair is unreachable.

.

when she returns to the city, dan asks her not to read the book that is being published under a pseudonym that is out of his control. she kisses his cheek, promises to not look at it. a feeling claws at her throat, a desperate need to see his words on print. he has an elegant way of speaking, a messy way of execution. she remembers years ago, tucked under her covers, with a copy of the new yorker in her hands and his words on the page in front of her. a love letter for serena - she wonders how long until the two of them orbit the same universe again. it's only a matter of time.

she sees chuck in secret, ashamed and longing for something else. he says he's better, but her mind is always elsewhere. dan's book gets published. she doesn't read it like she promised. words circulate that he's the author behind it. some scandalous new york drama. serena reads it and takes to not wanting to speak to her. chuck holds her hands above her head, sneers in her ear that humphrey is in love with her as he slides in and out of her. she feels so bored of it all, pushing his body off of hers. she gives no explanation when she leaves. coat buttoned to the top, she steps out into the light fall weather. the summer had come and gone without much fanfare, a wrecked engagement, a lonely paris excursion, no lovers or suitors or best friends to occupy her hours. she finds herself in brooklyn, but doesn't want to knock on the loft's door with the feeling of chuck still inside of her.

he crashes into serena only once more, when she turns into his apartment and they get drunk on expensive whiskey lily had bought for him last year. she is fun and light until she is bitter and resentful, about his book, and he knew this was going to come. she's still beautiful, he still loves her in some degree. the sex is fine, lackluster. he misses blair. he wonders how this all happened.

.

her period is late, she is sent into a panicked frenzy. she knocks on his door at three in the morning, tearful and curt. she has an excuse armed, his book tucked under her arm. she fights an unequal battle, a one woman match. _why am i not allowed to read it._ he says its fiction, she can't believe he still thinks that lowly of her. back and forth they spare, until he reaches his breaking point.

"i'm in love with you, blair." it feels dramatic and anti-climatic, after all this time. _oh_ is all she can say, the book sliding from her grip. it hits the floor with a soft thud, her heels kicking it into a corner. "i wrote it about you, for you." she kisses him before he can continue. it feels like coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> idk there'll be more probably . like its not supposed to end here


End file.
